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1. by Steve
   6 days ago

   Tobi, I got the information from the Pan Am website which lists the seating capacity of the new stadium. There is nothing there that says what will become of the stadium after the games, nor mentions any partnership with the Hamilton owner to upgrade the stadium or move the Tiger Cats there.

2. by Jonathan
   16 days ago

   You’ll all be happy to know that I am pushing the publication date of the magazine back to around November 15th when the playoffs will be starting. It just doesn’t make much sense to put one out at the end of October. This is good because I am also busy right now as I am sure you all are.

   Anyway, the theme for our playoff preview will be, “Why the … will win the Cup”. For our team section we will be doing one article for each team that makes the playoffs stating why they have a shot to win the Grey Cup. I think this is fitting because any team can win in the playoffs. Obviously every playoff team hasn’t been determined, but if you would like to write an article about a certain team let me know, even if they haven’t secured a playoff spot. I already have one writer for the Saskatchewan Roughriders and I assume Calgary Stampeders, so every other team except the Toronto Argonauts are up for grabs. Similiarrily, if you would like to write a team article for a team that doesn’t make the playoffs you can as well. The team previews will basically be first come first serve (unless you are a team writer who has been writing about a particular team all season long in which case you can have the chance if you would like)

   Also, for our playoff preview, it would be cool if everyone made their predictions once the teams were determined. This way I could list all of the previews and we could see who is right at the end. Also, if each writer could send a list anytime of who they think the league all-star team should be then I could once again put them all together.

   Besides these playoff previews, if you have any other idea for an article, preferably something that kind of wraps up the regular season let me know. Also, if you have an idea for a monthly column or something let me know as well.

   Finally, if you own a website or write for a site and would like to advertise it on the mag let me know. It of course will be free. You can either send me a rough design of your add or just tell me what you would like to say.

   If you have any questions give me a shout

   Thanks
   Jonathan

3. by Steve
   17 days ago

   Thanks for posting a note and reading all my articles, Tobi. I'll try to respond to them all.

   1. You have to remember that the CIS and the CFL are independent of each other. They have no obligation to each other at all. But because of the precarious football situation in Canada, it makes sense for them to work more closely together than they have done in the past.

   2. It's not just "poorly managed sports". Canadians don't have the money and they have different values and attitudes towards sports. I ran into conflicts with Americans over a series of articles I did on the World Baseball Classic. You can read some of them if you want to get a better idea of some of the differences in thinking between Americans and Canadians to certain sports.

   Also given the bad record of loyalty of team owners to cities, particularly in the NFL, Canadians would be wise to invest in sports cautiously. Canada lost Winnipeg and Quebec in hockey, Montreal in baseball, Vancouver in basketball, and had bad American owners in Ottawa for football. People are going demand a good return on their investment. Look at the hideous hockey investment in Phoenix.

   There's also been another development along these lines this week. The Terminator signed a bill this week authorizing the new Los Angeles football stadium and the investors behind the project have publicly stated they don't want an expansion team but want to steal an existing NFL franchise from its current city. They've targeted at least 7 teams. The investors have said they won't build the stadium until they've stolen a team. I might write another article on this.

   3. Along this line, another aspect in the university funding that I should mention: I am a graduate of the University of Toronto, probably Canada's wealthiest university and I get their alumni magazine and get solicited for donations every year. U of T gets a lot of private donations to set up scholarships, help student tuitions, fund new buildings, etc. Very few of these donations are ear marked for sports and even fewer for football. Wealthy doners are more interested in developing academics not athletics. It's probably the same at every Canadian university.

   4. I agree with you that Quebec would be the best choice for the NHL. Quebec is actually just a little bigger than Winnipeg, but it does have a much better growth rate. And a new arena would make it a no-brainer choice over Winnipeg. I doubt that the NHL would give Phoenix an expansion team. They would be just glad to cut their losses and get out of there.

   5. I agree with you that the CFL should be twelve teams, but Montreal and Toronto though they have the population won't support another CFL team. Hockey yes, football no. But teams in Kitchener, London, and Quebec would be close enough to Toronto and Montreal and I believe they have the population now to stand on their own. But they need investors and stadiums.

   6. Because the CFL only has three downs, it is more of a passing league and the ability of the quarterback to pass consistently well is more important. Therefore there is a lot instability at the quarterbacking position in the CFL if a team cannot find a man who passes consistently well. As my article notes, there is lot of that in the CFL this year. Bishop had another good game this week, Printers looked good except for his last pass, and Glenn will finish out the year as Hamilton's starting quarterback. Durant is the best of the new quarterbacks. But I think this year has been a poor year for that position except for Calvillo.

4. by Steve
   20 days ago

   Thanks for responding to my CFL-CIS article, Tobi. I'll try to respond to your points as best as I can.

   1. I don't mind you plugging the CIS. They need all the help they can get.

   2. The CFL doesn't have a million dollars to spend. When I wrote about the CFL working more closely with the CIS primarily I meant in ways that involved as little money as possible. Promoting the CIS more on their website, drafting and starting Canadian quarterbacks, perhaps increasing the number of Canadian players, promoting the CIS more during TSN broadcasts, having CFL stars and alumni visit Canadian universities, getting universities to hire ex-CFL players to coach, holding coaching clinics like they do in hockey, and recruiting more CFL coaches from the CIS are inexpensive ways that could help.

   3. There are also major differences between Canadian University football and its American counterpart that you don't know about. So I'll try and briefly list the problems here.

   Like the CFL, Canadian universities have limited funds and a huge amount of their funding comes from the Provincial Governments. When the money comes from the Provincial taxpayer, they want the money spent in certain ways and football is a low priority.

   In contrast, when a top high school American football player is scouted by a university, he'll be actively recruited by coaches, ways and finances will be found to get him to the American university, where his primary focus will be football even though he is supposed to be studying for a degree.

   There is little if none of that in Canada. Even in hockey, development of top junior prospects is primarily done by the CHL, not at the university level. University hockey is considered second tier in Canada as opposed to the CHL.

   Football is in the same position in Canada with even less status. As I mentioned in my article, lots of Canadian universities don't have teams. They don't have the money or they put little into it like York and the University of Toronto. When taxpayers are footing the bill, they want their money to go into academics, not sports.

   4. Given the poor record of professional sports teams owners loyalty to a community, it is not a bad attitude to take. As you know, many NFL teams have been switched at the whim of greedy owners, even when they have been having sold-out stadiums. The latest two ploys are Ralph Wilson in Buffalo, trying to tap into the rich Toronto market by playing a regular season game there and the potential builders of a new $1 billion stadium in Los Angeles. This group has publicly stated they will not build the stadium until they have stolen an existing NFL team from another NFL city. Canadian taxpayers don't want to put their money into sports when they see such things. They already lost the Montreal Expos, the Winnipeg Jets, and the Quebec Nordiques.

   5. I don't think getting a CFL franchise will affect the university teams at Laval, Western, and Laurier. They might affect them adversely or they might even help them. I think there would only be a slight change either way. Remember university funds are more dependent on the government in Canada than in the United States.

   6. My first article in the Stimulus To CFL Expansion series was on the Canadian quarterbacking situation. I agree with your second comment totally. The CFL has got to put down roots in Canada and developing star Canadian quarterbacks is a good way of doing it.

5. by Hurricane Hubbard
   25 days ago

   Men who earned their respect

   http://bleacherreport.com/articles/273279-revered-and-respected-nfl-players-that-will-always-be-adored

6. by Steve
   26 days ago

   Hi Tobi, as far as a competitive league for the NHL goes, that is how Edmonton, Quebec, and Winnipeg got into the NHL in the first place, with the WHA. It could happen again providing the team had a rich investor and an NHL size arena. So far only Hamilton has such an arena built but Quebec may be building one in the near future. If the new league also decided to compete directly in the existing Canadian NHL cities, they could build arenas too. It would certainly be feasible to do so in Toronto and Montreal. Other possible hockey cities are London, Kitchener, and Oshawa.

7. by Steve
   about 1 month ago

   Hi Tobi, re: boycott

   If anything, Canadians should have boycotted the NHL long ago, but because they haven't, it shows why a boycott would be extremely difficult to pull off.

   First, they don't have any alternative. They might watch junior hockey, women's national hockey and junior national hockey but that is only temporary. I could see a more successful boycott if a league like the WHA was around that had lots of Canadian teams that had lots of star players raided from the NHL on them. A chance for another league to try to wean away the tv viewing habits of the public over a long period of time might be successful. There was a golden opportunity for that during that strike year but of course no alternative league existed. The fact that the NHL was able to get the same Canadian tv ratings as soon as the league restarted shows how difficult a boycott will be.

   Second, there would be just as much difficulty at the ticket level. Unlike American franchises like Florida, Columbus, Phoenix, Atlanta, etc. where they have to offer discount specials and practically give tickets away, in Canada, there is a ruthless drive for a ticket. Asking a fan to give up his season ticket means he may never get it back again and with that sitting in the back of his mind, I doubt if a fan would join a boycott if that's at risk. Also many expensive tickets in every city are owned by corporations who use them to entertain business clients. It would be difficult to get them to relinquish them.

   A boycott of NHL merchandise would probably be more successful because there are no tickets to give up or television viewing habits to break.

   The best chance to hurt the NHL would be to have a professional league with lots of Canadian teams, including one in every NHL city and then the NHL run into labor or some other kind of difficulties forcing the league to shut down and give the new league a chance to establish itself.

   Even in cities that have been shamefully treated like Winnipeg and Quebec, there are lobby groups and never-say-die fans who are hoping to get their team back some day. Quebec already has an upfront investor and of course Hamilton had Balsillie.

   Team loyalties are hard to break and as much as Canadians from across Canada want to see franchises in Quebec, Hamilton, Winnipeg, and other cities, they are not going to do anything to help them, if it means losing their own teams without a suitable alternative at hand.

8. by Steve
   about 1 month ago

   Re. Hamilton/Phoenix article

   Thanks for reading and commenting on this article Tobi.

   1. Everybody in Canada knows that the NHL doesn't want a team in Hamilton, at least one owned by Balsillie. But most of the fans in Canada want a team there. The vast majority of Canadians were supporting Balsillie.

   2. The Hamilton market is so good it has been estimated that a Hamilton franchise could be the third most valuable in the NHL behind only the Leafs and Rangers.

   3. Canadians all across Canada have been following this story intensely since it started. It has been front page news and a featured television story from the beginning.

   4. A huge number of Canadian fans including myself have developed an image of the NHL as being anti-Canadian. This is especially true when you read about the history of its expansion to Canada. If you want to find out more about what has happened, go to my archives and select five of the first six articles I wrote. Canadians are particularly ticked off about how Quebec and Winnipeg were moved without much resistance and how a bad franchise like Phoenix is being defended to the last by Bettman and the NHL.

   5. In many of my articles about this subject and you are correct about pointing this out, the six Canadian franchises are opposed to Canadian expansion. This is because they want to protect their territorial areas and they don't want to share the money from their Canadian tv contracts.

9. by Steve
   about 1 month ago

   Thanks for reading and commenting on my article Tobi. I don't know if I'd go as far as to set up a team that is .500 or better but certainly one that has a lot of potential and hope. These are good ideas you've listed. Why don't write an article about the expansion draft and give it to B/R and Jonathan? And send your ideas to the league office. Maybe they'll take notice.

10. by Pete
    about 1 month ago

    Hey, it happens. It only detracts a little from an interesting article.

11. by Steve
    about 1 month ago

    Thanks for reading and commenting on my article, Tobi. This is one time I fully agree with you that the CFL has little minds and could be doing more to get people involved with the league.

12. by Steve
    about 1 month ago

    Thanks for reading and commenting on my article, Tobi and I agree fully with your comments. To a large extent it's a matter of lack of faith in oneself, the low-key approach that most Canadians take about some things though at times envying and coveting the hype and bombast that Americans like to display. Another example of this kind of behavior is at Blue Jay games, where the fans have been described by American announcers as being a "quiet" crowd. That's why I recommended those two books about the War of 1812 to you, because they bring into contrast some of the "national characteristics" that have developed since then. Except in hockey, Canadians show little "arrogance" about their sporting achievements and do little to praise their achievements even when they are merited. So they prefer outsiders, particularly Americans with their "hype" machines to do it for them, in fact they have a craving for it. When the Blue Jays used to make the playoffs, Bob Costas once drew the ire of the fans when he didn't mindlessly praise the team and made some mild criticism of them. When the Vancouver Olympics start, I'll bet many Canadians will tune into the American broadcast instead of their own, just to hear some American announcer praise Canada.
    Back to the article, I think if the CFL puts down more "roots" in Canada, including by getting more of them involved with the league, it will stimulate growth. I'll try to write more articles about how this could be achieved. Certainly developing Canadian quarterbacks will help.

13. by Jonathan
    about 1 month ago

    Thanks Tobi I appreciate it. I will let you know when the magazine comes out.

14. by Jonathan
    about 1 month ago

    Hey Tobi,

    I enjoyed you're and Steve's articles about the CFL in moncton and was hoping to include them both in the next edition of my CFL magazine "Fans of the CFL". What do you think?

15. by Steve
    2 months ago

    Thanks for reading and commenting on my article, Tobi. I doubt if moving Phoenix to Hamilton is going to make things things worse for the NHL as far getting an American tv contract is concerned. The NHL had bad American ratings regardless of which franchises were in trouble. Hockey is so unpopular in the United States that ESPN won't touch it any more and the only contract that could be negotiated is a bad one with Versus. And all those other teams you mentioned had falling local tv ratings in them. Moving all those failing franchises to Canada or the northern United States would probably be the best move, but the Canadian team owners don't want to share their tv revenue and the American owners view franchise shifts as an admission of failure that would discourage getting a rich American tv contract. But moving the four worst franchises to a combination of Quebec, Hamilton, Seattle, Portland, Milwaukee, and Hartford would solve a lot of the NHL's problems and place teams where they would be appreciated. It's time for a new direction and vision for the NHL instead of the wasteful loss of necessary resources by leaving teams in questionable markets where hockey is unpopular.

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